


West of California

by whatevenisabrobeck



Series: City lights [1]
Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: AU, Drama, Everyone is making bad choices, M/M, So Much Fucking Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10592922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatevenisabrobeck/pseuds/whatevenisabrobeck
Summary: The more Dallon thought about it-- which he did quite a bit; it was his job to think about it-- the more he realized that, really, he owed his success to Brendon. The book wasn’t about the commune, or about the large number of Ryan’s secrets which graced its pages, but about eccentric, unpredictable Brendon, who Dallon didn’t really love, and who Ryan loved more than anything. There they were, sitting next to each other, not saying it. There they were, sitting next to each other, thinking it.Sequel to City Lights





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Dallon could see that Ryan was angry. Really, he could, and he understood that anger entirely. In all honesty, Dallon would be angry, too, were he in Ryan’s position, and Ryan in his. “How did you even get this published?” the former cult-leader paced around the office, waving his arms in the air. Dallon had never seen him so angry.  
“I used a self-publisher,” Dallon explained, “People on Amazon seemed to like it.”  
“I’ll bet they did,” Ryan spat, “Nobody’s happy with you, you know.”  
“I know.”  
“Why did you think this was a good idea?” Ryan demanded, “Why did you think that you actually needed to write anything about the commune?”  
“Why did you think that I wasn’t going to?” Dallon asked. It would’ve been respectful for him to stand up, or at least invite Ryan to sit. “I’m a journalist.”  
“And journalists,” Ryan countered, “Write articles. Not five-hundred page books detailing the personal relationships of private citizens.”  
“I--”  
“‘Brendon proceeded to tell me about all the ways that Ryan had hurt him,’” Ryan was reading from a copy of Dallon’s book in a mocking voice, “‘He gave me a detailed account of how their relationship had come to be. They had met when Brendon was barely an adult, and Ryan had convinced him to come and live on the commune. As soon as they got there, Ryan had, apparently, decided that his work was more important than Brendon was.’ I don’t understand why anyone would even want to read this.”  
“Well, people do,” Dallon defended, “Millions of people do. Millions of people are looking forward to a sequel.”  
“Brendon read it, too, you know,” Ryan’s tone dropped. Ryan’s tone always dropped when he talked about Brendon.  
“Did he?”  
“Yeah, he did,” Ryan huffed, “It was already in his house, seeing as his parents used it to find him.”  
“How’s that so bad?” Dallon asked. “You once broke the law trying to find him.”  
“Yeah, but I never did,” Ryan said sharply, “Seattle is a big place, you know. I was already isolated again by the time you published it. I’d given up.”  
“For real, this time?”  
This was, perhaps, the wrong thing to say, as Ryan slammed the book down on Dallon’s desk, bending several pages in the process. “Indeed,” Ryan hissed.  
“Z took you back?”  
“Z wouldn’t take me back if she found me bleeding on her doorstep. I started a new commune.”  
“So you did love it more than him.”  
“That’s none of your business,” Ryan huffed, “None of it was ever your business. You should’ve known better than to write about things that don’t concern you.”  
“They want to make a movie,” Dallon offered, “My editors. I thought you’d like that, you know, since you’re an actor.”  
“I haven’t been an actor since 2007,” Ryan spat, “And I don’t want a goddamn movie made about me.”  
“It’s more about Brendon than you, I think.”  
“Well, Brendon doesn’t want you to do this, either!” Ryan stomped his foot, and the lamp on Dallon’s desk rattled. “He came to me, you know. After all that to get away, he came back to me. I opened my door, found him on my doorstep, and all he had to say was, ‘Dallon’s a crook.’”  
“Did he say that?”  
“Yeah, he did, and he’s right. You’re making money off of things he told you in confidence.”  
“I’m making money off of things he told me in the presence of a tape recorder, which he knew was on.”  
“I told you you couldn’t print anything I said.”  
“I didn’t,” Dallon argued, “Not in the paper.”  
“You still printed it,” Ryan stared at him with the same cold eyes he’d always had, “You still printed it, despite the fact that I clearly told you not to.”  
“You said not to print it in my paper,” Dallon pointed out, “And I didn’t. I have free speech, you know, I can write a book about whatever I want.”  
“You don’t get it, do you?” Ryan demanded.  
“Z thought my book was fine.”  
“Z is looking for a reason to blame me.”  
“How’s it my fault what she gets from the truth?”  
“The truth?” Ryan picked the book up again and flipped to a random page, “‘I laid awake in that tiny, starchy bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Brendon.’ That’s the truth?”  
“I exaggerated that bit a little.”  
“‘When he looked at me, I knew that I was just as in love with him as he was with Ryan. When he looked at me, I found myself compelled to bend to his will, no matter what it was that he wanted me to do. I belonged to him more than he ever did to Ryan,’” Again, Ryan read in a mocking voice, “I didn’t know you felt that way.”  
“How would you have?”  
“You lied to sell books,” Ryan slammed the book shut again. “You lied to sell books and to make me look like some sort of heartless monster. And you printed… you printed all sorts of things that Brendon wasn’t supposed to see.”  
“Why did you say them if you didn’t want him to hear them?” Dallon swallowed the guilt that was welling in his chest. He wasn’t going to take the blame for this.  
“Because I trusted you,” Ryan’s tone was colder than ever, “I trusted you, and I told you things that… well, things that I never would’ve said if…”  
“Brendon sent you, didn’t he?”  
“It doesn’t matter who sent me!”  
“But he did, right?” Dallon didn’t even look at Ryan. “He sent you, and he told you to tell me that you didn’t want him to read what you’d said.”  
“It’s true.”  
“You never told me anything but how much you loved him,” Dallon argued, “And that was all I printed. I think you’re still just as in love with him now as you were then, and he told you to come here and yell at me. I think he’s upset I spilled his secrets, and he’s sent you with your white horse and your sword to come slay me.”  
“He has a right to be upset,” Ryan hissed, “As do I.”  
“He knew the tape recorder was on,” Dallon pointed out, “And you knew that you were letting a journalist in. I don’t think I’m really at fault here.”  
“Spencer’s angry, too.”  
“I suppose he wouldn’t have a reason to be, had he treated me like a serious journalist and not as if I were bait to be sent so that Brendon could escape a life that wasn’t even oppressive.”  
“He was miserable.”  
“Because of you.”  
“He was happy in Seattle,” Ryan argued, “He was happier than ever without me, you know. I was just happy to know that he was happy.”  
“How did you, if you were isolated?”  
“I had hope.”  
“I never would’ve pegged you as the type to live off of hope,” Dallon flipped through the papers on his desk, “Have you said everything that Brendon told you to say yet?”  
“He wants to meet up with you,” Ryan said sharply, “Says it’s imperative.”  
“Why didn’t he come here, then?”  
“He’s practically on house arrest. His parents won’t let him leave-- you’ll have to go to Nevada.”  
Dallon sighed. “I’ll do it when I get around to it.” He was a bit annoyed at Brendon for sending Ryan rather than calling or sending an email.  
“That’s not good enough,” Ryan huffed, walking over to Dallon’s calendar and glancing at it. “You’re not busy today.”  
Dallon mentally cursed himself for putting his schedule where anyone who walked into his office could see it. “I’m meeting with the film studio on Saturday.”  
“It’s Monday,” Ryan huffed, grabbing Dallon’s keys from the bowl on his desk that he kept them in, “Now, come on. It’s a five hour drive; and I don’t want to be alone in a car with you at night.”

“Why did you even need my keys?” Dallon demanded as they reached Ryan’s car.  
“I didn’t, but I figured you wouldn’t go with me if I didn’t take them,” Ryan got into the car and gestured for Dallon to join him.  
He was right, of course. “What if I called the police?”  
“Then I’d get arrested,” Ryan shrugged, “Again. Which means I’d probably get sent to jail. And you’d write another bestselling novel about me, and then I’d testify about the time you and I evaded arrest by exceeding the speed limit in a stolen car without a license.”  
Dallon huffed but sat down in the passenger seat. “What’s stopping you from doing that now?”  
“If I did it, I wouldn’t have anything to blackmail you with,” Ryan tossed Dallon’s keys into the glove compartment and used his own to start the car.  
“Good point,” Dallon mumbled, and then they were off, speeding in the direction of everything that had made him famous.  
The more Dallon thought about it-- which he did quite a bit; it was his job to think about it-- the more he realized that, really, he owed his success to Brendon. The book wasn’t about the commune, or about the large number of Ryan’s secrets which graced its pages, but about eccentric, unpredictable Brendon, who Dallon didn’t really love, and who Ryan loved more than anything. There they were, sitting next to each other, not saying it. There they were, sitting next to each other, thinking it.  
They both knew that Dallon was only pretending to love Brendon. They also both knew that they were the only two people on the planet who knew this-- even if Brendon cared, he was willing to believe any positive lie told about him, and this was just one more thing that only Ryan and Dallon were aware of. “He talks about you a lot.”  
Ryan’s words shook Dallon from his thoughts. “I’d imagine he would.”  
“He says it must be just like he wrote it,” Ryan blinked but kept his eyes on the road, “He thinks he’s got you wrapped around his little finger, still. I want you to know that it’s the other way around.”  
“You think I have Brendon wrapped around anything?” Dallon asked, laughing. “You of all people should know that he’s impossible to tie down.”  
Ryan shook his head. “I knew you’d say that. I knew you’d make that excuse. It doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”  
“What, him loving me?”  
“He doesn’t love you,” Ryan said firmly, “He’s just a sucker for anyone who makes him feel important. You’re making him think he owes you something, and you don’t even care.”  
“Where the hell did you get that?”  
Ryan huffed, ignoring Dallon’s question altogether and pressing his foot down on the gas. It occurred to Dallon that maybe driving with Ryan wasn’t the safest idea. His steering and speed hadn’t gotten any less erratic in the past year, and now he was just as upset as he had been the day they’d gotten arrested. “Do you have a license now?”  
No response. “Let me drive, at least-- I’m legal.” Still, no response. “Ryan, you’re a convicted felon.”  
“Admit it.”  
“Admit that you’re a felon? I just did. Driving away from an officer is technically a felony.”  
“Admit that you’re using Brendon just to make yourself a few bucks.”  
“Ryan, are you serious?” Dallon demanded, “You’re going to get us arrested again!”  
“Just say it.”  
“Jesus christ!”  
“Say it.”  
“Fine, you want me to say it? I’m using Brendon! There, you happy? I’m totally using him; pull the fuck over!”  
Ryan sighed loudly and swerved through the oncoming traffic of the right lane to get to the side of the road. He hadn’t lost his old ways. “You could act a little less like you want to get arrested again,” Dallon got out of the car and began walking around the car.  
Ryan huffed, adjusting his sunglasses and eventually surrendering the driver’s seat. “You could try to act a little less like you want me to lock the car and drive away without you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Summerlin, Nevada was a small, quaint suburb of Las Vegas, and when he closed his eyes, Dallon could almost pretend that he wasn’t in the middle of the desert. He could hear children laughing and playing, parents conversing politely from porch to porch, sprinklers spraying more sidewalk than lawn. “Place hasn’t changed,” Ryan mumbled. This clearly wasn’t intended for Dallon to comment on, but he did anyway.  
“You grew up here?”  
“With Spencer, yeah,” Ryan breathed. There was a strange serenity to his tone, a rawness of emotion that Dallon hadn’t been able to detect during their yelling match earlier that day. “We used to skateboard up and down this street as kids.”  
“And here you are, driving up and down it, a fully-grown convicted felon.”  
They didn’t speak again after that, though Dallon didn’t regret what he said. It was true, after all, and if Ryan couldn’t handle the obvious truth, it was his own fault. Eventually, they reached a house that might’ve been a carbon copy of the others lining the street-- one story, flat roof, small porch. There was a garden outside, and a shiny-but-modest red car parked in the driveway. This, Ryan explained, was where they could find Brendon. “I’ll wait in the car,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “Grace and Boyd aren’t exactly happy that I talked their son into moving to the desert with me.”  
“That’s understandable,” Dallon got out of the car, but not before removing the keys from the ignition and stuffing them into his pocket. He didn’t trust Ryan half as far as he could throw him, and he was sure he couldn’t throw much anything further than a few feet.  
The door was answered, a few seconds after he rung the bell, by a woman who needed no introduction. She was Brendon’s mother, Mrs. Grace Urie; this Dallon gathered both from her appearance and her demeanor, which was stunningly similar to that of her son. Mrs. Urie looked like the kind of sexagenarian who had to ask for the senior discount before it would be given to her-- she had some youthful quality that, Dallon remembered, was also present in Brendon. Dallon laughed, imagining the twenty-nine-year old he’d met on the commune as a man in his mid sixties. “I’m here to see Brendon,” he declared without preamble.  
Mrs. Urie-- Grace, as Ryan and Brendon both called her-- looked at Dallon in confusion, before glancing to the car and noticing Ryan with his feet on the dashboard and a cigarette hanging out the window. “You’re Dallon Weekes, aren’t you?”  
“So they tell me.”  
This humor was ignored by Mrs. Urie, who instead embraced Dallon so tightly that he could barely breathe. She didn’t need to whisper any kind of thanks into his ear; the gratitude she felt was all very present in the hug. Despite this, Grace felt the need to murmur a simple, “Thank you,” before breaking the hug and leading Dallon inside. He hoped, fleetingly, that Ryan didn’t know how to jumpstart a car.  
The inside of the house was just a quaint and suburban as the outside, Dallon noted as he followed Brendon’s mother through several curveless hallways, eventually stopping outside an off-white door with a large wooden “B” hanging on it. “Brendon should be inside,” Mrs. Urie smiled in a motherly sort of way, “And if he’s not, we’ve got a problem on our hands.”  
She laughed at her own joke, the emotional moment they’d shared earlier long forgotten, as Dallon entered the room. All of the lights were off; daylight flooded through a crack in the curtains and washed over the bed, on which Brendon was lying. He was on his back, tossing a tennis ball in the air and catching it before it could hit the mattress. “You cancelled your credit cards.”  
“I believe that had something to do with the fact that you stole them.”  
Brendon sighed loudly and rolled over onto his side. “I ran out of cash after a week in Seattle.”  
“How much do you owe me, anyway?” Dallon stepped further into the room.   
“I don’t remember,” This was clearly false, and Dallon rolled his eyes accordingly, “I have your wallet, though, and your keys.”  
“Where’s my car?”  
“Ditched it,” said Brendon simply, “In Boise. You didn’t really think I’d keep driving something with stolen Utah plates? It would’ve just been faster to tattoo ‘ARREST ME’ onto my forehead.”  
“Maybe someone should,” Dallon smiled slightly, “Before you sneak into another room and steal another wallet under the guise of seduction.”  
“It wasn’t a guise,” Brendon pouted, “I really liked you.”  
“Enough to steal my identity and nearly get me fired.”  
“You quit anyway,” Brendon dismissed the idea by waving his hand, “And I didn’t steal your identity-- just your car and your money.”  
“It wasn’t my car,” Dallon smiled again, despite himself. “It was Spencer’s. And I had to pay for it when apparently you just ditched it in Boise. Couldn’t you have just swung by Salt Lake City and dropped it off?”  
“Are you crazy?” Brendon laughed loudly, too loudly given the situation. “I sold that piece of shit. Got four thousand dollars off of it-- better than I would’ve gotten turning myself in. And don’t deny it, you would’ve called the police if you’d found me on your doorstep.”  
“I’ve got half a mind to call the police on you right now.”  
“It doesn’t matter, I’m on house arrest anyway,” Brendon smirked, which seemed rather inapropriate given the situation, “Grace shelled out quite a bit to keep me from going to jail after your goddamn book came out.”  
“Ryan says you tracked him down, and he found you on his doorstep.”  
“Yeah, me and Grace and good old Officer Wilson,” Brendon explained, reaching into his pocket for something, “He must’ve left them out for the dramatic effect.”  
Dallon got the feeling that Brendon was lying, but chose to ignore this detail and continue with his investigation. “So, why’d you drag me six hours out of my way to come and talk to you?”  
“Aren’t I allowed to miss you?” Brendon pouted, stepping closer to Dallon. They both knew what was coming next. They’d done this once before, after all.  
“Ryan says you’re angry with me.”  
“Ryan also says that he never had a phone in the commune,” Brendon pointed out, “And that he can legally drive, which, by the way, he can’t. Ryan says he shouldn’t be in jail for his little felony incident-- you really don’t believe him, do you?”  
“As always, I believe him more than I believe you.”  
Brendon laughed a little, cocking his head to the side in a way that made Dallon think all kinds of lustful thoughts. “Are you going to kiss me, or do I have to do it myself?”  
Dallon rolled his eyes. “I’m not this easy to seduce, you know.”  
“Bullshit.”  
And then Brendon was kissing him, again, the same way he had a year ago. Hard, rough, sloppy. It was neither a loving kiss nor an overly sensual kiss, but one of need and of want above all else. Brendon’s eyes said it all as he pulled away. He was Dallon’s, or Dallon was his, or some strange combination of both, and neither of them could get away with it. Brendon wasn’t any more in love than Dallon was, and, yet, here they were.   
“You’re good at that,” Brendon breathed, “Better than Ryan, for sure.”  
Dallon knew that this was a lie. “Speaking of Ryan-- he’s outside, waiting in the car.”  
“Grace wouldn’t let him in?”  
“He wouldn’t even set foot on the porch.”  
Brendon laughed, in the same way he always laughed, with his head to the side and his eye hidden behind his hair. “Does he want me to go outside, or is he going to come to the window?”  
“Neither, I suppose,” Dallon stepped away from Brendon, making it apparent that he wasn’t planning to continue leading him on. Was it leading him on if he was leading back?   
“Are you staying?”  
“I don’t know,” Dallon admitted, “I assumed you and Ryan had worked that out before you sent him.”  
“We did,” Brendon raised his eyebrows in a way that made Dallon a little bit uncomfortable, “But you know I couldn’t tell him that kind of thing. He wouldn’t have gotten you if he’d known I wanted you sleeping next to me.”  
Dallon suddenly realized the truth of Ryan’s earlier statement. He thinks he’s got you wrapped around his little finger, still. “I’m not sure that’s the best decision.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because I’m not here for that.”  
He said it simply, as if that were a sufficient summary for everything going on between him and Brendon. That, which could’ve meant romance, or manipulation, or sex, or Brendon himself. Really, all it meant was that Dallon was more afraid of Ryan than he would like to admit, and didn’t want to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere.   
“I see,” Brendon smiled, as if he understood something that even Dallon didn’t. “Where are you staying, then?”  
“Ask Ryan.”  
“I can’t ask Ryan; you said he won’t leave the car.”  
“We’ll find someplace,” Dallon dismissed this, “Don’t worry.”  
“I want you to come back,” Brendon’s tone was authoritative, “I’m keeping your wallet.”  
“There’s nothing in it,” Dallon reminded him. I want you to know that it’s the other way around. “I disabled those cards, you spent all the cash, and you sold the car.”  
Brendon withdrew something from his pocket and held it up for Dallon to see. “I have this.”  
It was Dallon’s social security card, which he had been keeping in his wallet while he was in the commune. Brendon had it on him, which meant he’d been planning this. “And you’ve had it for over a year now. If you wanted to steal my identity you could’ve by now.”  
“But I haven’t,” Brendon reasoned, “And, more importantly, I still can.”  
“You’re blackmailing me.”  
“I’m better at it than Ryan, aren’t I?”

When Dallon returned to the car, Ryan blew smoke in his face and informed him that he’d been inside for three-and-a-half smokes. “We’re coming back tomorrow,” was Dallon’s response.  
“Let me guess-- late-night commune confession?” Ryan threw the cigarette he was working on out the window, opened the car door, and stomped it out.  
“Social security card.”  
Dallon waited until Ryan was fully inside the car to turn the key in the ignition. “Where’re we sleeping?”  
“I know a place,” was all Ryan said. “Keep going on this street, through downtown, and then I’ll tell you when to turn.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

“Here,” Ryan instructed, grabbing the wheel and swerving into the driveway of the ugliest house Dallon had ever seen. It would’ve been a pale yellow color, were the paint still on the siding. Instead, it was pale yellow with rather large grey-brown patches, and the lawn surrounding it was simultaneously dead and overgrown.   
There was a garage; it was padlocked but the windows were smashed. There was graffiti all over both buildings, and there was broken glass scattered around the driveway. Ryan said nothing but got out of the car, walking to the front door and unlocking it with a key that he produced from somewhere on his person. Dallon was left with many questions, but figured that he’d get more answers by following Ryan into the house.  
He noticed, as he tried not to contract tetanus from the sharp and rusty screen door, a small carving in the wood of the door frame. GRRIII. Below this, in a slightly sloppier script, were the letters SJS. There were other letters, initials, Dallon presumed, and names, written in sharpie or spray-paint or etched, but something was different about these. They looked older, like they were a part of the house, and the newer words had been put in later. The porch was littered with cigarette butts and other garbage; the trash and rickety porch swing were covered with dust.  
Dallon entered the house and could hear Ryan yelling, something along the lines of, “So just because I haven’t been here in awhile you think you can set up camp in my fucking house?” before his travelling companion emerged from somewhere within the building. “Sorry,” Ryan said in a lighter tone, “Teenagers.”  
The inside of the house smelled awful, like mold and weed and sweat and death, and looked even worse. Nearly every surface was stained, or dusty, and nearly every piece of furniture was broken or cracked. Dallon followed Ryan into what appeared to be a kitchen, the walls of which were covered in spray-painted designs. There, with several rude words around and on top of it, was a loud proclamation in bright purple, faded a bit with time but eye-catching nonetheless. Brendon loves Ryan.  
“He snuck in, one time,” Ryan answered the questions Dallon had before he could ask them, “While I was at school. Made me dinner, set up some candles and rose petals. Wrote our names on the wall. He said, Ryan, look, we can do whatever we want now. Ryan, look, this is our fucking house, and we can do shit like this now. Fucking touching, right?”  
“You lived here with him?”  
“For a while,” this was all Ryan said before he leapt up and began rifling through the cupboards. Dallon wanted more.  
“Before the commune?”  
No answer. “What’d he make you?”  
“Pasta,” Ryan responded, not looking at Dallon, “He spent an hour on it; skipped work to do it.”  
“Was it any good?”  
“If Brendon could cook, I wouldn’t have had to.” He meant on the commune, of course. Ryan was always talking about the commune.  
They sat, in silence, at the dusty table, where Ryan and Brendon had once shared a bland but romantic meal. “So, whose house is it?”  
“Mine,” Ryan answered simply.   
“Whose house was it?”  
“My dad’s,” and that was the end of that. 

Ryan didn’t give Dallon any instruction as to where they would be sleeping; he seemed a bit preoccupied with nostalgia. Dallon adopted a second-floor room, where everything was dusty except for the bed. He tried not to think about how many teenagers had used this room to fuck. There was a picture next to the bed, glued to the wall so that no one could take it down. No matter who slept here, kissed here, laid here, smoked here, this picture would always be up.  
They were young in the picture, maybe in their late teens, but Dallon recognized them nonetheless. There was Brendon, wearing the fake smile he whipped out when he thought he was being seductive. There was Ryan, with a haircut that made Dallon laugh out loud. On the other side of Ryan was Spencer, sans-beard and clad in a sweatshirt, laughing. Dallon tried to imagine what he thought was so funny. Maybe it was the fact that Brendon had his arm around Ryan, as if to say, mine. From what the three of them had told Dallon, he wasn’t wrong.   
Dallon half expected Ryan to creep up behind him and say something cryptic, but he was alone in the room. The ceiling sagged, the carpet was stained, the furniture was dusty beyond belief. Had Brendon and Ryan slept here once? Dallon tried to imagine them, much younger, holding each other and talking about the idea that would later become the commune. The way it was in Dallon’s head, Ryan was sitting up with Brendon’s head on his chest, talking about Marx and socialism and how communal living only works on a tiny scale.  
The way it was that night, Ryan was sleeping on the couch of his old house, surrounded by broken glass and cigarette butts, while Brendon threw a tennis ball at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom. They were back where they were before they knew each other, and it was all because of Dallon and his goddamn meddling. Actually, in truth, they were back where they were before they knew each other because that was how Brendon had wanted it, and so that was how it happened. 

The next day, Ryan offered Dallon a granola bar, and they got back into the car and drove away again. Ryan smoked, dangling his cigarette out the open window, and Dallon couldn’t help but hear the murmur in the town as they passed. He’s back. He’s really back. “You’ve got quite a reputation around here.”  
“Everyone’s got a reputation in Summerlin,” said Ryan, though Dallon wasn’t sure either of them knew what it meant.   
When they reached Brendon’s house, Ryan opted, again, to wait in the car, and Dallon proceeded to the door alone. Mrs. Urie greeted him with another hug. “Back again?”  
“Back again,” he agreed, before walking to Brendon’s room with no further ado. There was no point to it.  
“Tell Ryan not to leave any more cigarette butts in my fucking yard,” Brendon said without preamble as Dallon entered the room. The lights were turned off, again, and Brendon looked like a model from an old artsy photoshoot, posing as a silhouette against curtains his mother had surely purchased. “Grace was yelling about it yesterday.”  
“If you’d like to tell me how to talk to him without pissing him off, I’d be happy to.”  
Brendon laughed, that fake laugh he loved to employ whenever Dallon said something. It was a gold digger laugh, even if there was no gold to dig for. “I bet the two of you look adorable together, driving your stolen car through town. Where’re you staying?”  
“Ryan’s house,” It took Dallon a minute to register what was said, “It’s stolen?”  
“Which, the house or the car?”  
“Is the house stolen, too?”  
Brendon laughed again. “God, no. It’s his family’s place-- got it when his dad died. I lived there with him for maybe a year, while we were building the commune and getting it set up. As for the car-- I’m sure Z’ll figure that one out when she goes down to the garage.”  
“He stole it from Z?”  
“Not at all!” Brendon paused for effect. “I stole it from Z.”   
“You sure do like stealing people’s cars.”  
“What can I say, I’ve developed a knack for it,” he got up from the bed, trying to look seductive in the near absence of light. “You didn’t shower. Your hair’s greasy.”  
“I don’t think Ryan paid his water bills on the house. Or his light bills. Or any bills, really.”  
“I’ve got an adjoining bathroom,” this comment was sudden, but it was clearly what the conversation had been leading up to. “You can shower here… if you like.”  
“With Ryan waiting in the car?”  
“It’s either that or you wait til it rains, and Ryan’s probably going to be right next to you when that happens,” Brendon had the major advantage of having nothing better to do than to plan out conversations ahead of time. He was armed with well-founded arguments, and Dallon was not.   
“Your parents won’t mind?”  
“Please,” Brendon sighed, “Boyd isn’t even home, and Grace is watching TV. Plus, she loves you, so if she hears the water running she’ll get the picture.”  
“Does the door lock?”  
“The bathroom door?” Brendon pouted a little, before laughing and snapping out of it. “Yeah.”  
“From the inside?”  
“Of course.”  
“Fine,” Dallon huffed, “Fine. But only because there’s no other option. You’re staying out here, though.”  
“Of course,” Brendon smiled.  
“Actually, you’re staying in the living room or something. I don’t want you in here while I’m naked in there.”  
“Bossy.”  
“I mean it!”  
“Relax, man,” Brendon held up his hands, “You know I’m doing this as your friend.”  
Dallon did feel much more relaxed, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. “Thanks.”

 

When Dallon emerged from the shower, fully dressed, of course, Brendon had left the room. Dallon considered waiting for him, but then reached the conclusion that Brendon had left so as to demonstrate his loyalty and devotion to his promise. Good. He stepped out into the hall, and deduced from Brendon’s clear absence that he was waiting in the living room.   
Dallon rounded the corner into the room, but it was empty. “Dal!” Brendon exclaimed, poking his head out of the kitchen. “My mom made you breakfast!” he smiled sweetly, and Dallon couldn’t help but smile back.  
“I already ate.”  
“With Ryan?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Let me guess, he fed you a granola bar and then shoved you into the car?” Brendon was now leaning in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.   
“If you want to put it that way, I suppose I won’t stop you.”  
“I always hated those granola bars,” Brendon switched on the fake-deep voice he used for conversations like this, “They taste like bird seed. Or at least they did-- do they still taste like bird seed?”  
“I don’t think so,” They did, of course. They tasted like Ryan had rolled a clump of dirt, grass and birdseed into a bar and wrapped it up in plastic, but Dallon wasn’t going to tell Brendon that.  
“Hmm,” Brendon smirked, “Either he’s found a new brand of snack bars, or you’re lying. I feel like I can guess what the case is.”  
“Really, though, I’m not hungry.”  
“If you’re not hungry, I’m not on house arrest, and last I checked, my parents payed a lot of money to keep me out of jail.”  
“That was the most confusing sentence I’ve ever heard,” Dallon rolled his eyes, “Might as well get this over with.”


End file.
